Morgan BellIdentical twins may not have identical genes
April 8th 2008 08:44
It's huge, really... after all, identical twins have helped researchers in their quest to pinpoint the origins of human behaviour. In fact, I'd suspect that quite a few psychologists have based their research on the idea that twins were genetically the same... the proposed idea may throw that out of whack.
Or will it? Psychologists might want to play this down:
""It's pretty unlikely they're going to significantly change any of the results found so far," counters Kerry Jang, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, who runs Canada's largest twin study. "We can adjust our models to take [genetic differences] into account in the same way we've adjusted for different environments.""
Jang doesn't seem worried, but that might be to preserve the integrity of the research. What are these models that have to be adjusted?
While the DNA between twins is similar enough, there happen to be a few sites where there are not exact copies, which may be enough to cause a few effects:
"For example, one twin in Bruder's study was missing some genes on particular chromosomes that indicated a risk of leukemia, which he indeed suffered. The other twin did not."
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Comment by Cheryl J
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Comment by Sara Dobson
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Comment by Damo
This gives an interesting addition to the story
It has been common knowledge for over 20 years that genes do intentionally jumble themselves slightly and refuse to run te same way each time.(yes I used to read scan am back then too whilst studying Biology. Which I decided not to go into.)
Yet there are two issues with genes that few people talk about.
One is the code and the other the expression of that code.
Phenotype vs Genotype argument.
Meaning that identical twins will never really be identical. A cloning a dead son will only produce a different son.
Comment by Cibbuano
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sara, it's an old question: how much does the environment affect devlopment?
Damo, a different son, sure. Would he look like your original son? How much? How different?
Comment by Damo
There have been a lot of studies on identical twins that look at only what is the same. Yet we do know that even the physical characteristics of identical twins is never the same. One is taller, the other slightly different colored eyes. Then they may have different personal interests and obviously different personalities.
Many arguments abound about this often use the Nurture vs Nature comparison. Even a prenatal can have variations that cause changes. Then there is micro level of the environment. Is the chemistry exactly the same at the microscopic level. Then go down to the genetic level is the chemistry identical each time the DNA protein is read. Then you have to look at how that reading of the protein is converted into cellular activity. (DNA to RNA etc)
The only opinion I can express (and it is just a personal opinion) is that any claim to a simplified answer seems very much over simplified.
Comment by Louie
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Comment by Timothy Powell
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you are right about the problem of expression it is the biggest problem facing genetics the regulation of genes is going to be a central area of genetic research for many years to come
Comment by Timothy Powell
my second my first blog
poetryatrics
you are right about the problem of expression it is the biggest problem facing genetics the regulation of genes is going to be a central area of genetic research for many years to come